Protesters inspired by the growing 'Occupy Wall Street' movement in the U.S have today taken over the City of London.Thousands have descended on the area known as the Square Mile - under the banner 'Occupy the Stock Exchange' - for a 'peaceful protest' against the global financial system.

Libya's new government increased security in Tripoli Saturday with extra roadblocks and house-to-house searches after fighting in the capital with supporters of Muammar Gaddafi raised fears of another insurgency.

Syrian security forces shot dead three mourners and injured 20 on Saturday when they fired on a protester funeral procession in central Damascus while troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad fought army defectors west of the capital, witnesses said.

The White House continued its embrace of the Occupy Wall Street protests on Sunday, using the strongest terms yet to identify President Barack Obama with the growing movement.

Rome's worst street violence in years injured 135 people and caused damage of one million euros ($1.4 million) to public property, officials said on Sunday, as the clashes ignited a political row.

Three people were charged on Sunday with holding four mentally handicapped adults captive in a filthy Philadelphia basement, and two of the victims may have been held for as long as 11 years, authorities said.

The FBI picked up the investigation of a dead newborn found on a cruise ship that returned to Port Canaveral on Saturday. On Wednesday, a Carnival Dream employee discovered the deceased newborn in a guest cabin, according to a Carnival Cruise Line release.

Fresh lilies are regularly laid at a monument by the Tel Aviv Dolphinarium bearing witness to an evening in 2001 when 21 Israeli teenagers were killed while queuing outside a nightclub. Another 132 were injured in the attack by Saeed Hotari, a young Palestinian suicide bomber affiliated with Hamas. But last week flowers arrived more in protest than in sorrow. Husam Badran, the former head of Hamas's military wing in the West Bank and instigator of the Dolphinarium attack, is expected to be among 477 Palestinian prisoners released on Tuesday in a deal to free Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. A further 550 will be freed within two months.

Pope Benedict was wheeled up the main aisle of St Peter's Basilica on a mobile platform at a ceremony on Sunday to spare him the unnecessary fatigue of walking, but the Vatican said there was no concern for his overall health.

Saudi King Abdullah was hospitalised for a new back surgery in Riyadh, following two similar operations last year in the United States, the SPA news agency early Monday.

In a scary confrontation filmed by a diner, a cashier at a McDonald’s in Manhattan can be seen beating two female customers with a metal rod after the duo jumped the counter during a dispute early yesterday morning.

While President Barack Obama and top aides have been united this week in grave warnings over an alleged Iranian assassination plot, some U.S. government officials are privately expressing disquiet that the outlandish-sounding plan has triggered U.S. calls for stiff new action against Iran.

Large caches of weapons from Libya are making their way across the Egyptian border and flooding black markets in Egypt’s already unstable Sinai Peninsula, according to current and former Egyptian military officials and arms traders in the Sinai.

With the nation’s Latino population booming and now the country’s largest minority group, the Obama administration’s top Hispanic official is concerned that the federal government is not giving enough attention to Hispanic history and culture.